Anniversary Dinner

On February 2nd, Aaron and I celebrated nine years together. Over time our celebrations have gotten a bit smaller, especially since we also have our wedding anniversary to celebrate, and now we mostly cook for each other. I kept it fairly simple this time around and I think it was really nice.

We had baked salmon, spicy broccoli, dill Israeli couscous, and garlic crostini. I didn’t follow recipes for any of these, but it was such a fantastic dinner that I had to share.

This is what I did:

The salmon was a gorgeous about one pound piece of sockeye. I heated the oven to 350 degrees. In a big casserole dish, Aaron rubbed it down with butter. I cut the skin off of the filet and he rubbed both sides with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper. We then dotted the salmon with butter, squeezed some lemon juice on it, and sprinkled it with diced garlic.

It went into the oven for about 20 minutes. You can tell when the salmon is done when it turns a much lighter pink and it just looks tasty.

For the Israeli couscous, I put it in a pot with water, mixed in dill, pepper, garlic, and kosher salt and brought the water to a boil. It’s a similar ratio of couscous to water like rice to water. I reduced to a simmer and covered it while it cooked for another eight minutes or so. The consistency is a lot more like pasta, but it cooks like rice. I love it.

While the couscous was going and the salmon was in the oven, I heated olive oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat, tossed in broccoli florets, crushed red pepper, my ubiquitous garlic, salt, and pepper, and cooked that for about 30-45 seconds. When the broccoli was still bright green, but a little toasty, I turned the heat down, added about ½ a cup of water, and covered until the broccoli was cooked through, about 4-5 minutes.

Finally, while the salmon was cooking, I cut up a couple of pieces of rosemary loaf, brushed them with garlic olive oil, and put them in the oven with the salmon until they were crispy and browned. While the salmon was resting, I pulled them out and rubbed them with a cut clove of garlic.



Overall, the dinner was delicious and it was a great way to celebrate another year with my baby.